The New Orleans Saints have lost the Thursday Night Game to the Dallas Cowboys 10:13 to kick off Week 13 of the NFL. The NFC’s best team to date was hardly shown off offensively. The game was made more difficult by numerous individual mistakes on both sides and on the part of the referees.
The cowboys started the game with a worth seeing drive that lasted more than five minutes. But he only ended up with a field goal, as he was unable to move the ball from the 5 ball to the end zone. The key play was a sack of David Onyemata at 3rd Down. However, with the cowboys defending, the home side got the ball back quickly and then scored a touchdown in the second attempt – Dak Prescott found Ezekiel Elliott for a 16-yard touchdown catch-and-run after a well-designed screen.
The cowboys started to get in their own way as a result. First, Amari Cooper lost a fumble in her own half. This was not punished, however, as the Saints were finally stopped just before the goal line – they played a fourth attempt and decided against a loose field goal. Even before the break, the cowboys then managed a field goal – “only” a field goal, because Onyemata caught Prescott again for a sack in the Red Zone at 3rd Down!
The Saints came to life after the break and managed a field goal for the start of the second half. Then it was a bag from A.J. Klein who quickly returned the ball to the Saints. The first touchdown of the guests followed – with strong support from Dallas! In total the cowboys took four penalties in the drive, the most serious – and unnecessary – was one for Roughing the Kicker against Randy Gregory, who wiped out a stop near the midline. Shortly afterwards, Brees thanked Keith Kirkwood with a 30-yard touchdown pass – the latter, however, escaped with a slight push against Cornerback Anthony Brown, who favored the touchdown.
What followed were numerous shortcomings – on the part of all involved! Gregory destroyed a sack and a fumble because he was already in the neutral zone during the snap – offside. The referees overlooked a clearly illegal Helmet-to-Helmet hit from Jaylon Smith to Alvin Kamara on the sidelines, whereupon the Saints punted. The cowboys, on the other hand, made it to the Red Zone, also because Vonn Bell had a hands-to-the-face penalty against Prescott – who just wanted to throw the ball away at 3rd Down!
But even from this situation the cowboys did nothing! Prescott took his third bag at 3rd Down in the Red Zone – and lost a fumble to top it all off. The Saints took over again, but not for long, because Brees threw an incredible interception to Jourdan Lewis with no promising receiver nearby.
The Cowboys then got to the 1 ball through a pass interference in the final zone by Marcus Lattimore against Cooper and were allowed to kneel down after the Two-Minute Warning.
The Cowboys Defence kept the Saints and their High-Scoring-Offense at 10 points, which of course no other team had succeeded in this season. How did she do this? Especially with Inside Pressure! DeMarcus Lawrence and Anthony Brown also managed two sacks, but the five QB hits and the extremely short time Brees was allowed to play were more decisive. Outstanding also: Linebacker Leighton Vander Esch, who with his horizontal speed just made life difficult for Alvin Kamara and never let him really unfold.
If the cowboys had lost, Prescott and Gregory would have been the candidates here, but since it hit the Saints … Payton made some weird choices that haunted him to the end. We started with two challenges that were simply not worth it. The first one didn’t have any reasonable video images (Cooper-Catch), the second one was for a Fumble, which led to a First Down in the Red Zone – at 1st Down with the Saints-Offense! And playing the fourth attempt in the Red Zone was also unnecessarily risky. At least at the catch of Cole Beasley in the second last drive of the cowboys a challenge was missing in the back, because the catch at 3rd Down was actually too short for a 1st Down. And the timeout a few seconds before the two-minute warning at the very end was the ultimate killer, because it gave the cowboys the chance to pass, which they probably wouldn’t have played after the TMW – after all, a run would have forced the last timeout of the Saints instead of risking a clock stopped again with a pass. So the cowboys only had to kneel down to win after the PI call.